How to juggle being an entrepreneur and a schoolteacher in the new Covid World

We’re all trying to deal with what people are calling the ‘new normal’ over here. Its day 4 and we’re just starting to come to terms with these turbulent times.

I’ve given up my shed office to my partner who has 2 massive computer screens to run his business, and I’m back at the kitchen table.

A lot of us women in the self-employed world started our own businesses to be able to juggle caring responsibilities alongside running a business.

To have the freedom to be able to pick and choose our hours, so they could fit around the school hours and the 13 weeks of school holidays a year.

Now every day feels like a school holiday.

And my working day is looking very different to how it looked 3 weeks ago.

3 weeks ago I travelled to London by train, went to a bar in Liverpool Street for the Digital Women Awards and left with Digital Woman of the Year.

I was still lecturing at Nottingham Trent Uni, I was speaking at events, meeting up with colleagues about future projects and working face to face with my coaching clients.

I could see my friends, go shopping, take a trip to the Peak District and my daughter was going to school.

3 weeks later and life feels a little like it has ground to a halt, but conversely, we’re all still doing.

And it’s tricky in the self-employed world.

Some of us have literally shut up shop. Some of them overnight.

My clients are a mixed bag of shutting bricks and mortar stores for who knows how long, having customers and clients cancelling, and excitement about what it means to move their business into the digital space.

There will be winners and there will be losers in this space.

And we still are unsure of the support the Government will come up with for the 10% of the workforce who are self-employed.

And the pressure is on to come up with a pivot. Some novel way to change your products and services to suit a stay at home landscape, with internet one of the only ways we can communicate and stay in touch with each other.

But for a lot of people, that pressure is too great.

We’re just getting our heads around what it’s happening around the world, we’ve become schoolteachers in our own home, business is uncertain and we’ve got this pressure to adapt quickly to the changing landscape.

Having my daughter at home is not as simple as just sitting her in the corner with a laptop to get on with it while I work.

And when I do have clients via zoom, there is often an interruption and I need to divert my attention momentarily to help my daughter.

Pushed and pulled between parenting and being an entrepreneur.

It’s a tricky tight rope to walk.

It’s hard to be creative and think of novel ways to offer your business when there are Key stage 3 science questions looming in the background!

But we are adaptable as human beings and I am excited to see the novel ways businesses are turning things around and looking for solutions.

And who wishes they had shares in zoom? That would have been a happy silver lining to this situation, we could have all made a bit of extra cash!

All we can do really is make the best of what’s happening. Try to calm our brains and not project ourselves too far into the uncertain future, because that’s where fear and panic lies.

To reassure ourselves that we’re ok, there are not bombs dropping on us and we just need to stay indoors. To protect each other and to protect the NHS.

We’re lucky, the sun is shining and there are birds singing in the trees.

10 years ago I was fighting a battle with cancer. It taught me that community and friendships were the most important things. As well as health.

Look after yourself and those around you. We will come out of this x